Itel Containers Int'l Corp. v. Huddleston, 507 U.S. 60, 17 (1993)

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76

ITEL CONTAINERS INT'L CORP. v. HUDDLESTON

Opinion of the Court

tions from Congress that Tennessee's method of taxation is allowable, and with due regard for the fact that the nuances of foreign policy "are much more the province of the Executive Branch and Congress than of this Court," id., at 196, we find no reason to disagree with the United States' submission that Tennessee's tax does not infringe the Government's ability to speak with one voice when regulating commercial relations with other nations. "It would turn dormant Commerce Clause analysis entirely upside down to apply it where the Federal Government has acted, and to apply it in such a way as to reverse the policy that the Federal Government has elected to follow." Wardair Canada, supra, at 12.

V

Itel's final avenue of attack on the Tennessee tax is that, as applied to international container leases, it violates the Import-Export Clause. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 10, cl. 2. Our modern Import-Export Clause test was first announced in Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages, 423 U. S. 276, 285-286 (1976):

"The Framers of the Constitution . . . sought to alleviate three main concerns by committing sole power to lay imposts and duties on imports in the Federal Government, with no concurrent state power: [1] the Federal Government must speak with one voice when regulating commercial relations with foreign governments, and tariffs, which might affect foreign relations, could not be implemented by the States consistently with that exclusive power; [2] import revenues were to be the major source of revenue of the Federal Government and should not be diverted to the States; and [3] harmony among the States might be disturbed unless seaboard States, with their crucial ports of entry, were prohibited from levying taxes on citizens of other States by taxing goods merely flowing through their ports to the other States not situated as favorably geographically." Ibid. (footnotes omitted).

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